Searching for Resilience: Seal-watching tourism as a resource for community development in Iceland

• Main Author: Burns, Georgette
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2018
• Subjects: Wildlife and Habitat Management; Tourism not elsewhere classified; Griffith; Húnaþing Vestra; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10072/372895; https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315463971

This chapter presents a case study of wildlife tourism from northwest Iceland. Exploring the history of interactions between human and seal residents of Húnaþing vestra demonstrates change, adaptation and resilience over time. The addition of wildlife tourism has added a third actor, the tourist, and interactions with, and attitudes toward, seals as a resource have recently changed again. The residents, the tourists, and the seals must find a way forward. Looking to literature and case studies of ethics and responsibility in wildlife tourism can help create a planned path to move beyond sustainable tourism and toward resilience for this community of people and animals. Griffith Sciences, School of Environment and Science No Full Text